Bitcoin appeared to lose vital $7k support earlier this week dropping to $6.9K on the 5th of August, but a small rally may soon be on the horizon from technical analysis of the charts.

What we might be seeing at the moment is a bearish decline from taking into consideration the 50-day moving average (MA) where selling pressure failed to push the price lower than $6.9k due to the strong resistance.

At the time of writing the price reached $7,287.91 on Huobi with Bithumb not far behind at $7,255.52 per Bitcoin, but western exchanges are much slow on the corrective rally with the price at $7,188.46.

At the time of writing the the price of one Bitcoin on the largest exchange by 24 hour volume, BitForex is $7,098.84

This strong buying support behind the 50-day moving average could be an early indicator of a bullish August with a rally towards $7,500 – $7,600 expected.

This change of market is based on strong rumours circulating that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) may finally give the green light to a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) at the end of this week when the SEC meet on the 10th of August.

In other news major Swiss-based banks, CoinBase and Goldman Sachs are enhancing custody services for their big institutional clients which will see a secure cryptocurrency service for storing large amounts of crypto.

Indian police extorted builder for Bitcoin

Nine Indian police officers felt the full force of the law after being arrested for extorting nearly $50,000 in cash and 200 Bitcoins from Surat-based builder, Shailesh Bhatt, who claims he was kidnapped in a local hotel by the crime branch cops last February.

Cardano scores with its launch on Huobi

Yesterday Huobi Pro announced that Cardano (ADA) will start trading on the 17th April at 14:00 GMT +8. Huobi is one of China’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges with a daily trading volume exceeding a billion dollars. The listing of the coin has already pushed the price up by 9.30% in the last 24 hours and is expected to significantly increase as more trading starts.

Launch of Cardano (ADA) on Huobi Pro 🌃🤩Deposits will be available from 14:30, April 16 (GMT+8). Trading will be available from 14:00, April 17, 2018 (GMT+8).

Coinbase acquires Earn.com for $100 million

Coinbase has acquired Earn.com for a cool $100 million. The firm was one of the most funded startups attracting $116 million over several rounds. CEO & Co-founder of Earn, Balaji Srinivasan, will become Coinbase’s first chief technology officer.

IMF boss says crypto could make finance safer

The head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) – Christine Lagarde, believes digital currencies and blockchain technology could make the global finance system safer by increasing the speed, cost and safety of transactions.

That level of diversity could build a “financial ecosystem that is more efficient and potentially more robust in resisting threats”, she said.

Is your country a Bitcoin revolutionary?

Crypto enthusiasts across reddit are competing with each other in a challenge to prove which country is the most Bitcoin friendly. Users have posted Bitcoin signs spotted in stores across Romania, Saigon, Bali, Toronto and many more locations.

Honesty is the best policy?

An increasing numbers of ICO’s are promising all kinds of weird and wacky things from Bananas on the Blockchain (so ap-peel-ing) to AI that can predict the future. This week we seen the launch of Honest Coin “The Most Honest Cryptocurrency Ever Invented”. The project aims to be completely honest with their goals from day one.

Your ticket to the moon

No… we are not talking about psychedelics or bull markets however you can still ride yourself to the moon with CryptoRider, a mobile game developed to virtually ride those price charts. Now you can experience the highs and the lows again and again and again. Sounds like fun right? Download here.

Is Monero the new tax haven?

Forget the Cayman Islands, Monero could be the next big tax shelter. With 8 months left of 2018 its time to become “tax efficient” by simply getting your boss to pay you in the pro privacy currency says hacked.com.

Indian crypto exchange offers bounty for information

Indian-based cryptocurrency exchange Coinsecure has offered a 10% bounty ($356,000) for information leading to the recovery of the $3(+) million funds stolen last week.

Shipping on the Blockchain?

ShipChain is launching a pilot program this summer with CaseStack solving supply chain, tracking and tracing issues in the shipping industry. CaseStack works with Amazon, Target, Duracell and many other Fortune 50 companies in the world.

A patent has been filed by Mastercard that will use Blockchain technology to verify and store identity data to combat fraud.

Read the patent here filed at the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Ethereum will power deep space exploration

The The University of Akron’s (UA) and NASA will work together to help spacecraft avoid floating debris, the assistant professor Dr. Jin Wei Kocsis has received $330,000 in the form of a grant from NASA.

Not so illegal

Insurance on the Blockchain

Marsh, ACORD Corporation and ISN Software Corp are working with IBM to develop insurance verification on the open-source hyperledger fabric technology and IBM blockchain platform. With the soft launch expected later this year. It will be used to speed up hiring contractors, transferring risk and coverage certainty.

Ethereum, Bitcoin and many of the major cryptocurrencies are back in the green with the finger being pointed at Wall Street legends George Soros and John D. Rockefeller who are allegedly investing.

Although it’s still early days, 2018 has not been a great start for crypto with the price of Bitcoin plummeting from record highs.

What caused the crash? It would appear that several elements played a part but the massive tax bills American traders have racked up, estimated to be in the region of $25bn, are undoubtedly a factor, combined with regulatory uncertainty in several Asian countries and tech giants such as Facebook and Google banning adverts related to crypto.

Billionaire investment fund Soros Fund Management has been given the green light to trade in digital currencies, although the firm’s $26bn fund has not yet made a wager according to Bloomberg.

Venture capital firm Venrock, which was founded by descendants of John D. Rockefeller, recently announced it was partnering with a cryptocurrency firm from Brooklyn.

According to Hedge Fund Research, funds that invested in cryptocurrencies at the beginning of 2017 made colossal profits of around 3,000%.

It seems that April will be an interesting month for cryptocurrencies, as, at the time of writing, Bitcoin was trading at $7,147.92 with Ethereum at $415.72.

Launched just last week by Jersey-based financial firm CoinShares, the Ether Tracker One and Ether Tracker Euro exchange-traded note (ETN) has now surpassed $10 million since trading on Nasdaq Stockholm.

CoinShares combined assets under management (AUM) (which included the Bitcoin Tracker One and Bitcoin Tracker Euro) are now at $330 million since launching in 2015.

“When the group’s bitcoin ETNs – which are now at $330MM in AUM – launched in 2015, it took one year to attract the initial $10MM in AUM. The Ether Trackers achieved that in less than a week” says Ryan Radloff, Principal at CoinShares.

Due to popular demand by investors CoinShares is now providing professional asset research into the top 5 crypto-assets, this they believe is something new due to all previous research that was carried out more or less focused just on Bitcoin.

The first research is named Ether Asset Highlight launched today: https://coinshares.co.uk/#research

“We are excited to bring CoinShares Research to life as we begin to support the needs of the next wave of crypto investors. Now that we have a team covering ether, bitcoin and a few others on a full-time basis, expect more great coverage to come soon,” says Ryan Radloff, Principal at CoinShares.

The brand comprises two exchange traded bitcoin notes (COINXBT & COINXBE), two exchange traded ether notes (COINETH & COINETHE) and two funds (GABI & CoinShare Fund 1). All of these represent ‘first of their kind’ products in their respective categories.

For many investing in cryptocurrencies can be unfamiliar territory due to the complexity of managing wallets, dealing with exchanges and the related security concerns. ETN’s act as a gateway, simplifying the process for everyday investors who want to dabble in the cryptocurrency market but don’t know how.

Jersey-based CoinShares announced today that two Exchange Traded Notes (ETNs) connected to the price of the Ethereum cryptocurrency can now be traded on Nasdaq.

Denominated in both Swedish Kronor and Euro, the ETNs are designed to track the price of Ethereum and are based on the average value of a select group of liquid Euro exchanges.

This comes as no surprise with other providers including XBT issuing similar ETNs for tracking Bitcoin last month and GABI, the first regulated BTC hedge fund combining the two entities to launch CoinShares who have crypto assets of around $300 million. These previous ETN’s were made available to investors through Hargreaves Lansdown.

Investing in cryptocurrencies have been notoriously difficult for everyday investors due to wallet, transaction and exchange complexities however with CoinShares historic NASDAQ announcement non tech-savvy investors will now have full access to the cryptocurrency market.

In the last 18 months at least fifteen cryptocurrency funds have launched and around five crypto-based investment products are currently pending review with regulators in the U.S. and elsewhere.

“Today is a historical moment for Ethereum and ether as an asset; and for the future of crypto-assets. It was a little over two years ago that the bitcoin ETNs began trading – offering investors exposure to bitcoin via an established exchange for the first time. Today, we are able to bring ether to the market and mark another major first. It is important to remember how far and how fast the space has matured in the less than 8 years since this revolution began,” says Ryan Radloff, Co-Principal at CoinShares.

We put some questions to CoinShares in a short interview:

What type of investors do you hope to attract with the ETH ETNs?

Product is for any investor who has qualified access to Nasdaq Stockholm.

Can you give us an estimated $ price of what you think Ethereum will trading at by 2018?

No price target right now – though we did a valuation model in our latest Ethereum research which may be helpful

Do you plan to trade on other exchanges such in currencies such as £ or $ ?

Cannot comment on future plans of that nature, apologies

What other cryptocurrencies do you have in mind? are you open to other ETNs with other currencies?

We delivered this product because the market had been requesting it since last year. We will follow market demand for future products as well.

After a laborious nine-week search Uber’s management board has voted to appoint crypto-friendly Dara Khosrowshahi as their new chief executive – a potential win for Bitcoin Ethereum.

Under Dara’s 12 year run, Expedia was one of the first major organisations to accept Bitcoin as a form of payment (back in 2014) and subsequently legitimising it. So much so that both Microsoft and Dell followed suit shortly after. Dara is also a personal investor in Bitcoin startup 21 inc and has been an influential promoter of blockchain technology and its uses in real world projects.

With Bitcoin dominating the early days it made sense for Expedia to start accepting the cryptocurrency, however three years down the line it would seem Ethereum would be a better all round solution.

Bitcoin has also encountered a number of issues of late, many of which have stemmed from its slow confirmation times and increased transaction fee’s. With neither of these issues being appropriately addressed it is impossible to use this currency in any time critical use cases. Ethereum however with its lightening fast conformations (which are soon to get even faster) and low transaction fees would be a well equipped contender. It only takes around 15 seconds for a transaction to be confirmed on the Ethereum network making it easy to pay as you pop out of the cab, as opposed to Bitcoin which would require you to… well we’re not quite sure how that would work.

Rumours around Uber accepting cryptocurrencies have long circulated but until now they been nothing more than internet chatter, with Dara’s appointment however it may well become a reality. These are exciting times for the cryptosphere.

Despite reaching all time highs of around $400 in mid June, Ethereum has been slowly declining. It hits its lowest price of $130 last Sunday. The coin has seen a lot of volatility and panic although this now looks to be abating.

Its steady incline over the last 48 hour period looks promising as it hits $190 at the time of writing. This trend is expected to continue with the price breaching $200 by the end of the week.

There is no one reason for Ethereum’s recent decline but the biggest culprit seems to be the Bitcoin split. This has caused panic and uncertainty for many traders across all altcoins resulting in a sea of red.

Also the millions of ETH being raised and dumped for fiat through the recent ICO frenzy has also fueled investor uncertainty and driven down the price.

Even now the recent Tezo Initial Coin Offering (ICO) is worrying many traders with the fear that the project will dump the $200 million equivalent raised on the market in the very near future.

The market cap has dropped from $36 billion to $14 billion. That’s a $22 billion loss with a two-month period.

The Polish Cybercrime Unit based in Krakow have announced the arrest of a 28-year old man in connection with the theft of around 85,000 PLN from Polish Bitcoin exchange BitMarket.pl

Working from a tip off, the Cybercrime Unit began tracking the perpetrator and subsequently arrested computer scientist ‘Raphael W’ – who according to the police manipulated the BitMarket software to illegally withdraw around 85,000 Zloty or £15,000 Sterling.

The official notice was posted on the Provincial Police Headquarters website but was unclear with regards to how exactly the theft took place and what has happened with the money.

The perpetrator was arrested for breaking the Computer Fraud Act – Art. 287 of the Penal Code with a maximum imprisonment of five years in jail.

Customers of the Polish Bitcoin exchange recently voiced concerns regarding the theft of coins from their wallets.

– ‘There are hundreds of Bitcoin millionaires out there, and it’s burning a hole in their pocket’

Font view of the $3 Million luxury villa

Fancy views of the beautiful Mediterranean coastline with the prime minister as your next door neighbour? Then maybe it’s time to move to Caesarea for a slice of your very own paradise.

The property owner is offering his luxury villa for sale at nearly $3 million, but wants the buyer to pay in Bitcoin.

The villa is located on the Mediterranean coast, in a quiet cul-de-sac in the exclusive Caesarea area, and boasts seven large bedrooms, five bathrooms and a safe room, not to forget the outdoor heated pool shaded by tropical palm trees.

The luxury property was listed on BitPremier last week, a high-end website for ‘astute buyers in the Bitcoin community’, where shoppers can find everything from super yachts to vintage cars and private islands, all purchasable with the cryptocurrency.

Potential buyers will be surrounded by the wealthy elite, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Valery Kogan, who has a cool net worth of nearly $2 billion and is a close friend of Vladimir Putin.

‘I want to make history by selling my property for Bitcoin. Whether the price goes up or down, I’m prepared to take the risk.

‘There are hundreds of Bitcoin early adopters who became multimillionaires literally overnight, and it’s burning a hole in their pocket.

‘The location is not the normal place for a holiday home for anyone from outside Israel, but the Caesarea coastline is a hidden gem.’

Bitcoin is bought and sold on a peer-to-peer network independent of any central control. The currency’s cryptographic features make it attractive to the tech savvy, and enable anyone to shop online without fear of censors or government regulation.

The cryptocurrency was trading at £218 on the exchange yesterday, and recently, companies like Dell, Virgin Galactic, Expedia and PayPal have offered customers the choice to pay with the digital currency.

Bitcoin startup Nuovocard which is set to officially launch at the end of September – is an innovative POS solution which aims to speed up the process of buying, selling and trading goods in a retail environment with a simple debit card.

The card is the first of a kind for transactions as customers can make payments offline with no internet connection by either swiping or scanning the magnetic card which comes with a handy QR code across any android or IOS device to make payment.

One of the main problems with integrating Bitcoin payments within a brick and mortar setting is the speed and queue which usually forms behind the customer fiddling with their smartphone. Nuovocard solves this problem as the customer can quickly hand the card to the merchant who will then swipe it and then prompt the customer to enter the pin or simply scan the QR code.

What adds to the speed of Nuovocard is that the system ensures immediate conversions & payouts to retailers with support from local exchanges world over. This means that merchants can be rest assured that the fluctuating Bitcoin market price will not affect the sale price.

The backend system processes transactions using a Google API with a water tight SSL connection with AES encryption.

“Security and safeguarding customers transactions is the focus of NuovoCard’s design” said the CEO.

Merchants can download the Nuovocard app at the end of September either at the Google or Apple store and the official Nuovocard website. Anyone wishing to use the card straight away can sign up anonymously and print a QR code version of the card.

NuovoCard will be an irresistible POS option for all merchants looking to accept Bitcoin due to the 0.5% transaction fee.

Anyone wishing to test the security of NuovoCard can take part in the hacking challenge which has a very attractive $2800 bounty.